Menu Ideas

Sometimes the hardest thing about eating at home every night is deciding what to cook for dinner! Here are some sample menus to stir your imagination. You might make your own list of favorite combinations so when you're brain-dead but need to plan anyway, you can choose menus you know your family liked. When I started out, I found it very helpful to plan my week's worth of meals and make the grocery list from that. I learned to reserve one night for experiments or leftovers or just emergency "pantry" dinners when you're in a hurry. I still find my busy weeks go much smoother when I have a list of meals I'm going to make, but I don't assign a day to any of them. I just make a list and choose something from the list depending on what kind of day it's been. (Or choose the night before if something needs defrosting.)

There are many different ways to plan your menus, but my view is that any way is preferable to no way. For one thing, if you write down what you're eating you tend to skip the fast food junk on the way home because you've already planned a meal. You're saving money and your health at the same time! Also, if you write your plan down, you can see that you're not eating chicken five nights a week.

Rotating Menus

Some people like to write up two weeks' worth of menus and then repeat them, leaving a spot or two for new recipes to try or leftovers. Other people write a month's worth. Some people like to have seasonally oriented ones, so they might have rotating two-week menus for each of the seasons, with more stews and soups in the winter and barbecue and salads in the summer.

I like to write down a week's worth of menus because I tend to go shopping once a week. You might have dietary goals, like eating fish more often or having a vegetarian dish one night a week. Making a plan for the week makes it easier to fit those changes into your life.

Simple Lists

My preferred style right now depends on what kind of a week it is going to be! When I know the week is going to be busy, I tend to plan each dinner around the loss leaders at the grocery store, go shopping after making the menu choices, and then follow the plan. When I am having a slower week, I want to try new recipes so I spend some time perusing the cookbooks and picking out something new, then making a quick list of other tried-and-true favorites without assigning a specific day to anything. I can also switch plans at the last minute, making Fried Rice with the leftover beef or chicken rather than the sandwiches I had planned because the day turned chilly, for example.

A Category a Day

To keep yourself from getting bored with eating "chicken every night" (or whatever your fallback entree is), try setting up a plan for variety, such as:

* Fish

* Pasta or rice based

* Poultry

* Vegetarian

* Red meat

* Beans

* Eggs or cheese

Having a template to fill in forces you to be a bit creative and keeps your menus from being boring. Look at the weekly specials at the grocery store and plan accordingly. Seek out some new recipes to keep the creative juices flowing.

Daily or Thereabouts

This has never been my style, but I do know people that shop and cook this way. Some enjoy shopping and have the time to go every day and buy that night's dinner. Others might plan a day or two in advance but no farther. If you like to shop and live where it's convenient to buy fresh foods more often, this can work.

Healthy Tip

A recent article I read suggested thinking of fruits and vegetables as being in four color groups: yellow/orange, green, blue/purple, and red. Your goal for healthy eating should be to eat from a mixture of the color groups throughout the week. Keep this in mind as you plan your menus and experiment with some new vegetables!

Ellen Ferlazzo is the founder of www.CheapCooking.com, a site that is chock full of frugal tips and recipes to help you conserve your food dollars.